Go Up Together

“Knock knock knock.”

Clear knocks on the door seemed to be quite abrupt in the building. But luckily, the person knew a certain limit so such sound wouldn’t wake others.

Soon, the door opened from inside. A barebacked man with only underpants went out.

It was a cop in his 30s that knocked the door. He was thin and tall, but when he saw the man who walked out, he couldn’t help but turned a little humble.

This time, six experiencers and six audiences were recruited into this story world at the same time. Now three of their people had already been killed; only half of the audiences were still alive.

“Mr. Ego, we’ve found them.”

The man known as “Mr. Ego” smiled, stretched out his hand and picked up a bag of cigarettes and a lighter from the young cop’s pocket. He lit up a cigarette, then threw the lighter right onto the young cop’s face and said slowly:

“He Yao, you know what? I hate people who only share half of the information.”

“Yes, of course…” He Yao immediately bent down, picked up the lighter and continued, “Qiu He and Zhang Lu are dead. Not under surprise attack with thermal weapons, but more like being killed during a head-on fight. Their bodies have been taken care of; no one can tell their special identity. We can be assured about that.”

Ego nodded and blew out a smoke ring.

“Three.”

Yes, three audiences had been killed.

Ego looked at He Yao. “Are you sure it’s not the murderer?”

“Pretty sure. Because Qiu He and Zhang Lu were killed in two different ways, and there’s no distinctive mark of that Silver serial murderer.”

Ego smiled. “Then it has to be those experiencers.”

“Probably… Maybe…”

Ego pursed his lips, scratched his head and became a little angry. Yes, he was angry.

He Yao continued, “Mr. Ego, do we need to sit down and discuss what should we do next?”

“Yes, we should discuss. Come on in.” Ego turned around and was going into the room.

“I’ll go tell Jadeite.”

Jadeite was He Yao’s wife. They had known each other since they were experiencers and then moved in together. Due to the horrible experiences they shared, their affections towards each other soon increased; they started living together and even got married just before they entered this story world.

It was kind of normal. When people were weak, feared or desperate, they tended to seek comfort and care from others around them.

Ego shook his head, “No need. You didn’t go back to your room, did you?”

“No. I’ve been investigating this, and then I just came straight to you after I got something.”

“Oh, no wonder. Jadeite’s in my room.”

“What?” He Yao was astonished. “She’s in your room?”

Ego pushed the door open and turned the light on.

“See, she’s right there.”

He Yao felt as if he was hit by a lightning. Right now, his wife was lying on the bed, totally naked. There was a smell that usually came after multiple sexual activities, and his wife’s cheeks were still flushed. Probably because she had been doing “strenuous” exercises, she was sleeping soundly.

“You!”

He Yao pointed at Ego. No man could stay calm facing such a scene, even if he was a hero or a villain, let alone that he was never so strong. In fact, none of these audiences was of higher level, with only one exception- Ego. Therefore, everyone tended to follow Ego, thus making Ego a leader of the audiences, like Director Zhou among the experiencers. Besides, when they had introduced themselves to each other, Ego said that he was a high school teacher in reality, so the others all respectfully addressed him as “Mr. Ego”.

But He Yao could never imagine, this teacher could bring his wife onto his bed to “teach her something”!

And this teacher was calmly inviting him in and showing his wife’s appearance directly to him!

Next, He Yao’s face started twisting and growing out green hair; his face was beginning to turn into a wolf face.

However, before the first wolf howl came out, a blue light flashed in Ego’s eyes, and He Yao was bounced off. He hit the wall and couldn’t move, with his arms and legs tightly against the wall and his feet off the ground.

Panic appeared on He Yao’s face. He used to believe that even if Ego was better, he would only be a little stronger than them. But now that they actually fought with each other, he found out that he was no match against Ego.

Ego cleared his throat, picked up the beer from the table and took a sip. Then he walked to the bed and turned the bottle upside down toward the woman.

The cool beer was poured onto the woman’s face. She immediately woke up and looked at Ego:

“What? Is this a new game? I can’t do with that bottle, it’ll hurt me. Let’s see… how about a banana or an eggplant…”

Before she finished talking, she suddenly stopped in shock because she saw her husband had been controlled and forced against the wall. Half of his body had turned into a wolf, but he couldn’t move at all, let alone fight back.

The first thought occurred to the woman was that her affair was detected. Immediately, she begged:

“Mr. Ego, I’ll be with you, I’ll do whatever you want, just let him go, please?”

While saying so, the woman also leered at Ego, opened her legs and voluntarily revealed her private parts in front of Ego.

Ego turned around, looked at He Yao and nodded seriously. But then, he swung the bottle and smashed the woman’s face.

“Bang!”

The bottle broke into pieces, and the woman fell down with a deep groan. Next, the broken bottle with sharp glass stuck into the woman’s neck. After twitching for a while, the woman became completely lifeless, and her blood soaked through the sheet.

Ego threw away that half of the bottle and walked to He Yao.

“I really wanted to play more before turning against you. But you guys are neither good nor smart, so you got yourselves killed one by one! But you should all be mine! I’ve reserved you as my own story points!”

Just after he finished his speech, the light in his eyes suddenly grew stronger. He Yao sank into the wall; his bones were cracking and his skin and flesh started to crumble. At last, what was left on the wall was a large pool of blood.

Ego closed his eyes and staggered; he managed to grab the chair nearby.

“Damn it. Four times a night? Feels like I’ve been drained.”

Just then, a drastic sound came from outside. Ego was shocked; he rushed out of the room to the handrails, looked at the fire in the building in the front, and his face twisted in anger.

“There’s someone even more ruthless than me among those experiencers? Unbelievable!”

……………

Now the situation was simple and clear.

Su Bai hadn’t made any move when Director Zhou looked so weak, because he was not sure if Director Zhou was setting up a trap by giving him the wrong impression. Director Zhou’s identity was complicated, and Su Bai knew that he was well-experienced; he was not an easy target. So even at that time, given such a good opportunity, Su Bai still held back the impulsion to attack him and chose to wait.

But Director Zhou thought that Su Bai was after more benefits. So on the way back, he negotiated with Su Bai and offered a plan to take the rest experiencers’ lives together.

Su Bai cooperated very well.

In fact, Su Bai was still cooperating until they had finished that final cup of tea. In his opinion, even asking a tiger for its fur[1] might still be possible. It would be nice if the two of them could share the benefits for taking Wang Hongsheng, Fat Dong and Sun Fei’s lives.

But the accident happened as it should have. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident. Anyway, those three people had chosen Director Zhou’s side.

When Fat Dong said that as if he had seen through everything, Su Bai didn’t argue or say anything like “do you know Director Zhou’s real identity and what he has done”. He just calmly stared at that fruit basket he had brought…

Even asking a tiger for its fur might still be possible, but it requires vigilance at all times. Otherwise, the tiger might eat you.

Therefore, when Su Bai went to get his bullet replenishment with Director Zhou’s authorization, he also took some detonators which were just captured by other cops and put them on the bottom of the basket.

There was a few seconds of silence.

Then Su Bai suddenly leaned backwards and turned over the couch.

“Boom!”

It exploded…

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Asking a tiger for its fur: A Chinese phrase that means to request someone against their own interest.